


all i ever learned of love

by ADreamingSongbird



Series: gone away is the blue bird, here to stay is a new bird [2]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Reunions, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, ash shows up in japan and he and eiji cry on each other: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21882928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADreamingSongbird/pseuds/ADreamingSongbird
Summary: was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.The leopard comes back down the mountain. The bluebird finds its way back to its nest. Ash Lynx goes home.
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Series: gone away is the blue bird, here to stay is a new bird [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576378
Comments: 52
Kudos: 577





	1. and darling ill drown in your arms

**Author's Note:**

> title / summary quotes taken from "hallelujah", because i have feelings about ash lynx

It takes Ash the better part of two years to decide he can’t do this any longer.

He’s in Corsica, staring out the window into the night sky with the ten-ton weight of a familiar ache on his chest, when it happens. He leans back in the armchair of his private apartment and stares at the moon and wonders if Eiji looked up at it, too, last night—it’s morning in Japan, now, and Eiji must be getting ready and going about his day.

He looks at the moon and he aches, and he wonders if Eiji ever looks at the moon and aches for him, too.

It’s a nightly query. The stars never answer, but he likes to think that in the silence between them, in the empty, dark spaces, there are remnants of laughter, of the way Eiji would smile for him, would touch him with gentle hands when he wept, would soothe him on sleepless nights.

The sleepless nights hurt much more, now that he has to face them alone again.

And that’s the thought that does it—the final thread of restraint holding him back snaps, and his heart frees itself of the prison he’s stuffed it into and screams and screams and _screams_.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until the tears drip from his chin onto his hands, wet and cooling rapidly on his skin. It’s been so long—why does this still hurt? Why can’t he accept that he’s never going to see Eiji again?

 _My soul is always with you,_ Eiji wrote, once. It must be true, because Ash chokes on his tears even now, over a year later, and looks around his empty, soulless apartment as if he’ll see Eiji there, ready to make it a home—if Eiji’s soul is with him, it would explain why he can’t stop thinking of Eiji, why the loneliness still gnaws so agonizingly at his chest in the dead of night. He is a bitter monster—he had one taste of love, and he can never let it go.

They say _if you love something, let it go._ Then he must not truly love Eiji—he can’t let go, for the life of him. He knows it’s better if he stays away, knows Eiji is safe only as long as he never sees him again, knows he’s already lucky beyond belief just because he got to bask in Eiji’s light as long as he did, but…

More hot tears splash down onto his hands, and he buries his face in his palms, shoulders quivering.

He hates Corsica.

Hates the Foundation, hates the marble floors and vaulted ceilings, hates the sleazy men in their expensive suits. Everything here reeks of the bastards who took everything from him.

And maybe it’s normal, that he thinks of Eiji, every night. He’s here in Corsica, wearing a new name and a new life, just to scrub the Foundation’s data banks clear of everything they have on those he loves. Max Glenreed, Jessica Randy, Ibe Shunichi, and…

Eiji.

Golzine is dead. Foxx is dead. No one here knows the truth about Ash Lynx, or Banana Fish. They think Golzine an old fool with a soft spot for his old ward. They think Ash Lynx died in a library in New York, broken after nearly losing the boy he loved.

They’re almost right.

But Ash is a monster, and Heaven refuses to let him in, so he dragged himself from the library and stitched himself a new identity and a new name and a new reason to make himself carry on: ensuring the Foundation would never touch any of his family again.

Max, he thinks, was still looking for him, last he checked. He doesn’t know. It’s not safe for him to keep tabs on them, and even if it was, it would hurt too much. But even someone as tenacious as Max must have given up by now, accepting that Ash Lynx is dead. Everyone must have moved on.

Except for him.

He looks up at the moon again, as hot tears leak from the corners of his eyes and spill down his cheeks. A year and a half, and he can’t stop thinking about them. About Eiji.

Eiji, Eiji, Eiji.

He thinks of Eiji’s smile, and his tortured heart yearns.

He’s a broken man. He can’t be strong forever. He’s just street trash, masquerading as a Foundation member like Dino always wanted—the irony isn’t lost on him—but under it all he’s just a mess of shattered pieces and he’s splintering, splintering further and further and further until he’s sure he’ll break completely one day, once he’s free to disappear for good.

Except that he’s _weak,_ and his heart aches, and aches, and aches, to see Eiji one last time. To know he’s alright. To… to replace the image of him, barely able to walk, clutching the wall to stay upright and stumbling out of his hospital room, face tight with pain. To put a smiling, happy Eiji in its place—to know he’s going to be fine.

Yes, Ash thinks. If he could just… see Eiji once more, he could die at peace. Really die, this time. That’d be all he needs, in this world.

Just once.

It only takes him a few months to get everything ready. The Foundation is convinced Golzine was an idiot, by the time he’s done with things, and that no ties to them can be found despite the slow, bureaucratic ongoing investigation still happening in the States. Max is deemed harmless, and Golzine’s revenge mechanisms brushed aside entirely.

Eiji is safe.

And so Ash disappears from Corsica.

He flies to Paris, first—it’s close enough that he can get there easily, but not so close that he feels watched. It’s a beautiful city, but the exhaustion in his bones doesn’t let him enjoy it. He settles into a hotel room and sighs, deeply, and gets to work.

By morning, he has a redeye plane ticket to Tokyo, booked under the name _Aslan J. Callenreese._

He’s not exactly proud of the amount of Facebook-stalking and Google-translating he has to do to figure out where Eiji is. It’s definitely creepy. But he doesn’t have Eiji’s number—how could he? Eiji got a new phone so many times in America when it got damaged or lost, and would have gotten a new SIM card back in Japan!—or his home address or his email or _anything,_ so all he can do is find him on Facebook and hope for the best.

Eiji himself doesn’t post often, but from what Ash gathers, he’s at the University of Tokyo, in some place called Meguro City (unless Google Maps is lying to him). That’s some help, but not enough—how can he find one student on a whole campus?—and he keeps digging, but Eiji is private enough that there’s no identifying information available, and Ash can’t exactly just message him and ask. It would bely the point of seeing him one last time from afar, if he let Eiji know he’s on his way.

Finally, he has a stroke of luck: one of Eiji’s friends has tagged him in a photo, only two hours ago. _We’re gonna be up real late to finish this project on time for Isshiki’s class tomorrow,_ the caption reads, under a picture of a stack of notebooks and two festive, red Starbucks cups. _But we’ll kick ass! Love ya, Eiji!_

And yes, he knows it’s kind of very creepy of him to take the name _Isshiki_ and go to the university’s website to find the schedule of classes. And really, it’s just his best guess as to which of the classes that meets tomorrow Eiji will be in. But it’s a lead, and if this is what he has to do to see Eiji again…

He curls up in the bed for a few uneasy hours of sleep. Once night falls, he heads to the airport.

It’s a nonstop flight, and though he’s in the first class cabin, he can’t rest at all; there are too many strangers around him, and he hates planes, hates that if something goes wrong he can’t escape. He spends all twelve hours in a state of minor anxiety, drinking shitty airplane coffee to keep himself from being too exhausted to stay alert, until finally, _finally,_ as the sun crests the horizon in Tokyo, the flight attendants announce that they’ll be landing in thirty minutes.

“You look nervous,” the woman next to him comments. She’s an older Japanese lady, with hair in a high grey bun and square glasses, and her smile is kind. “Please, be at ease! What brings a handsome young man like you to Tokyo?”

Her accent is a lot like Eiji’s. Ash’s heart squeezes in its chest as he smiles politely. “Ah, just… coming to see someone.”

“Oh! Visiting your girlfriend?” His neighbor smiles knowingly. “We have lots of lovely girls, yes. Me, I am going home… I was in Europe seeing my son and his wife. She is Belgian, you know. My grandchildren are the _cutest_ little kids… Who are you going to see? I am sure she will be very happy!”

Ash laughs politely, though he doesn’t feel it at all. “He,” he corrects. “He is someone very dear to me.”

Her eyes widen, and then she nods again, smiling. “Kids these days. Yes. I see. My daughter is engaged to a girl, you know! So, your boy. He is at the airport waiting for you? Do you know how to get to the subway lines?”

Ash shakes his head. “No, but I’m sure I’ll manage. He actually doesn’t know I’m coming.”

Her eyes go wide again, and she claps her hands twice, delighted. “A surprise! How romantic! No wonder you look so anxious. Do not worry! It will all be okay. He will be so happy to see you!”

Ash glances back out the window. Somewhere, down there in this concrete jungle, is Eiji.

“Yes,” he says softly. “I can’t wait.”

He doesn’t bother with the subway, once he lands; all he has is the backpack he’s carrying, with a change of clothes and his laptop and some toiletries nabbed from the Paris hotel, so he hails a taxi, prays that the driver speaks English, and agrees to pay for the ride from the airport to Eiji’s campus.

The driver does speak English, but not enough to hold a conversation in the car—either that, or he can sense that Ash doesn’t want to talk. Either way, the drive is uneventful. They arrive with over an hour to spare before Eiji’s class ends, and Ash’s head is starting to pound from the exhaustion of being awake for so long, so he meanders around until he finds a coffeeshop.

His heart thunders in his chest as he looks down at his latte, a few minutes later. Eiji is nearby. Eiji is so close that if he wanted, he could go to him. He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t, but his traitorous, weak heart lurches, tugged inexorably toward Eiji, and he’s tired enough that just for a few seconds, he sits at the café table and stares out the window and lets himself daydream.

If he let Eiji see him, Eiji would be thrilled. Would run to him, laughing—would be hale and hearty and golden, happy and healthy, and would leap into his arms. Would cry _Ash! I thought you were gone,_ and hug him tight, laughing in joy.

And then he would never let him go, and Ash would never let go of him, either, and slowly but surely he would drag Eiji down again, until something else happened, and Eiji would once again get hurt.

He sighs, looking down into his latte again. The foam swirls before his eyes, and he rubs them with a groan. He’s tired.

He dozes off before he realizes it, snapping awake with a jolt of panic when he realizes he’s fallen asleep in a public café, and anyone could have attacked him. But no one has—no one even seemed to notice him drift off. It would be easy to think maybe no time passed at all, except that his coffee is cold.

And then panic hits again for a different reason. Did he—did he miss the time the class ends?

He frantically checks his phone and heaves a deep sigh of relief when he sees he has twenty minutes. It was a ten minute walk here; he gulps down his cold latte and jumps up, about to run out the door, before he reconsiders and buys a new, hot one to go. It was a ten minute walk when he was meandering and searching around; he’ll be fine.

Once Ash gets to the class building and finds the room, the anxiety in his stomach grows exponentially. Eiji is so, so close. Eiji is within reach, and he’s—he’s going to walk away again. It’s for the best, but god, he doesn’t want to, he’s so _tired_.

He pulls a beanie on to cover his hair. There are hardly any blonds here, and he’s already too tall not to stand out—there’s one chair in the hallway, but it’s already taken by another student with his own cup of coffee.

He sighs, leans against the wall, and slowly slides down it to the floor. If he sits here and doesn’t make eye contact as the students leave the room, Eiji won’t notice him. It’s easy to not be looked at.

But—

Someone greets him in Japanese, and he blinks, looking up. The student in the chair is peering at him curiously.

“Uh, sorry,” he manages. “English okay?”

The other boy brightens. “Aw shit, dude, you’re American? Me too! Sick! I was asking if you have the next class here. You can have the seat if you want, I’m just waiting on a friend who’s in this one.”

“Oh.” Ash offers a tiny smile. “Yeah, I’m American. Keep your seat—I’m waiting on a friend, too.”

“Oh, okay.” The student looks away again, then back down to his phone.

Silence falls, for a moment.

And then, “Uh, okay, so I know this is weird ‘cuz you don’t know me, but I’m kind of nervous.” The student glances at Ash, twiddling his thumbs anxiously. “Can I ask for a bit of advice?”

Ash quirks a half-smile at him. “I’m not sure I’m the best to give that out, but go ahead.”

“Right, I feel you,” the student laughs, then rubs the back of his neck. “So I’m actually, uh, planning to like, try and ask my friend out? This coffee’s actually for him. They had a big project due today. You know that, though, if you’re waiting for someone with coffee too, right! Ignore me. Point is, uh… He’s super sweet ‘n’ all, and I’m not, like, worried about him being a jerk if he doesn’t wanna date me, but I’m still nervous as fuck!” He laughs again. “Any tips to be more chill about it?”

Ash blinks.

Blinks again.

He’s had to do a lot of things in his life, but giving out _dating advice,_ he’s pretty sure, is a new one.

“Well, I guess it depends on your friend,” he tries, looking down at his coffee. It’s still a little too hot to drink, but he’s tempted anyway. “What makes you nervous about him?”

The other boy sighs dreamily. “He doesn’t make me nervous at all! I just don’t wanna… I dunno, make him uncomfortable? He’s a total dreamboat. He’s got these super pretty eyes—they’re really big, he says it makes him look like a kid and he hates that, but I think it’s cute. And he’s the sweetest guy in the world!”

Wait.

Ash purses his lips.

“Does he, by any chance, like photography?”

“Yeah!” The student blinks. “How’d you know…? Wait, are you friends with him, too? Eiji? Eiji Okumura?”

“Uh, kind of,” Ash says. Shit, how’d this go sideways so fast? This guy can’t tell Eiji an American friend of his was here! Especially not if he’s a friend of Eiji’s, close enough to want to ask him out (and that… makes Ash feel kind of unpleasant, but he’s not allowed to be jealous, not when he isn’t allowed in Eiji’s life at all, so he ignores it). “It’s complicated. I’m here for someone else—”

The classroom door opens, and people spill out. Ash ducks his head down and ignores them all, heart in his throat. Shit, shit, shit, he’s gonna get caught, he’s gonna get caught—

“Eiji!” the boy greets, and Ash can’t help but look up.

Eiji looks exhausted. He’s wearing a too-big hoodie and some old, worn jeans, his hair is messy, there are bags under his eyes, and he has his glasses on, instead of contacts. Everything about him screams _tired._

Ash’s breath catches in his throat.

He’s _beautiful._

“Maive?” Eiji looks around, and his face lights up when he spots the boy. “I did not know you had class here today!”

“Oh!” The boy grins, and Ash looks away. “I don’t! I thought I’d just bring you coffee, since you were up late, but I guess I wasn’t the only one with that idea, huh?”

 _Shit._ Ash freezes, praying the boy doesn’t give him away, praying Eiji doesn’t ask, praying—

“Huh?” Eiji asks. People meandering by in the hall obscure him for a moment; Ash almost ducks away into the crowd, but he knows it’s too late, and his tired bones are rooted to the floor. Eiji is so close to him. He could reach out and touch him. Eiji is within reach, and yet…

“Yeah!” Maive says. “An American friend of yours, right? Hey, bro, what’s your name, I didn’t catch… hey, dude? You okay?”

There’s no way out of this.

“American…?” Eiji repeats, turning, and…

Ash stands up.

“Hi,” he says, lamely. And then, because Eiji’s staring at him, eyes wide and face white, and he’s very uncertain and full of anxiety and he’s so, so tired, he shoves the latte forward and holds it out. “Merry Christmas?”

 _“Ash?”_ Eiji whispers.

“Sorry,” Ash says, glancing at Maive, except that he isn’t really sorry for taking Eiji’s attention, because Eiji is standing in front of him, looking up at him, and he’s drowning. “Uh, yeah. Hi?”

Eiji takes the coffee. His hands are trembling. “Ash, what… what are you… you are _here?”_

Ash offers him a tired smile. This doesn’t feel real. Is he really here? “I think so, yeah.”

“I… guess I’ll go,” Maive mutters, giving Ash a kind of dirty look, and Ash shrugs as he turns to leave. “See you ‘round, Eiji.”

“Ash,” Eiji breathes, not even noticing as his friend leaves. “Ash.”

“Hi,” Ash says, a third time, and then he gives up and swallows the lump rising in his throat and reaches forward, almost touching Eiji’s cheek before he stops himself. “I… shouldn’t be here. I’m sorry. I just—I had to—I’m sorry, Eiji. I should go. Are you—you’re happy, right? I should go, I really should, but…”

Eiji inhales sharply. And then—

“What kind of _fucking_ question,” he cries, stamping his foot, “is that, Ash? You show up _two years_ after I thought you _died_ and you—you ask—”

He breaks off, shaking his head, and grabs Ash’s wrist. “We are not talking about this here,” he says, and drags him down the hall, until they reach an empty classroom, and Ash lets him haul him inside and shut the door, in mild shock. He probably deserves to get yelled at. Eiji could hit him, if he wants, and that would be alright. Just so long as he stays near him.

How did he think he would ever be able to see him once, and then leave again?

Eiji turns from the door, puts the latte on a desk, and folds his arms over his chest, his eyes too-bright. “How—why—what are you doing here?” he asks, breathless, and picks up the coffee again, clasping it in both hands as if he can’t decide what to do with it. “I thought you died, Ash, what—what’s going on?”

“Please don’t cry,” Ash says, pathetic. “I… didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Eiji shakes his head again. “For _what_ to happen?”

“For—for you to see me here.” Ash sighs and looks away. “I… didn’t want to make you sad about me again. I thought if I could just—I could just see you, and I would be satisfied, and that would be enough.”

Eiji stares at him for a moment. “You—you were going to come to me, and—you w-weren’t ever going to even let me know you lived?”

His voice is raw; he sounds like Ash has just punched him in the gut, and suddenly everything feels wrong wrong wrong—the distance between them, the tears glinting in Eiji’s eyes, the stupid coffee in his hands.

“I didn’t want to make you worry about me all over again.” Ash closes his eyes. “It’s better for everyone if I’m dead. So I let… Everyone already thinks I’m dead. It’s better if you all move on. I’m sorry, Eiji—”

“Max is still looking for you,” Eiji interrupts, voice soft, and Ash opens his eyes. “He calls me every weekend. We talk about you. He tells me he has no news, and I tell him no news is good news. They never did find your body. I always thought… some part of me always thought that meant you would come back.” He laughs humorlessly, looking down at the latte. “And here you are.”

“Here I am,” Ash agrees numbly. “Max… still looks for me? I thought he would’ve given up by now.”

Something flashes in Eiji’s eyes. “Not everyone is willing to give up on you. I never was, either.”

“Eiji,” Ash breathes, and almost reaches for him again. His chest aches more, not less, than before he sought Eiji out. How did he ever think he would be able to walk away again? How did he plan… God, what a fool he is. “I just—it’s my fault you got hurt. It’s because of me that—”

“I knew you would say that,” Eiji sighs, shoulders slumping. “I… I cannot stop you from thinking it, can I, Ash? Just like I cannot stop you from leaving me again, if that is what you are set on doing.”

He sets the latte down and buries his face in his hands. Ash’s heart is so, so heavy.

“I just had to see you again,” Ash tries. None of this is how he wanted this to go. Eiji wasn’t supposed to be so tired and sad. Everything was supposed to be alright, so he could die in peace. Max was supposed to have forgotten him in favor of his real son. “I… I wanted…”

“It is okay.” Eiji looks up again, smiling tremulously. “I am glad you came. I… this whole time I have not known what to think. At least I know, now,” and he wipes at his eyes. His smile isn’t as bright as Ash remembers it being. “If you want to leave, I will not stop you, Ash. I am just glad I could see you again. Are… are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Ash says. And then, hesitating, “I’m… so tired.”

“Rest,” Eiji murmurs, a familiar warmth in his eyes. “You deserve it. Will you stay with me a little longer?”

Just a little longer. He can do that, and then he’ll leave again. The weariness in his bones makes him agree more easily, and the desperate yearning in his heart just aches for Eiji.

“Yeah,” he says, and sighs, sagging against the desk at the front of the room. “…So. Um. How have you been?”

Eiji gives him an unimpressed look, wrinkling his nose just like a bunny, as the warmth in his eyes fades. “How do you think?”

Ash winces. “I… really am sorry.” Everything about this is going wrong, wrong, wrong. He could kick himself. What an idiot he is.

“I know.” Eiji looks away, wrapping his arms around himself. “It is okay. I am just glad… that you are safe.”

Ash sucks in a breath. Lets it out. Runs a frazzled hand through his hopelessly-mussed hair. “I thought I never wanted to see you again,” he admits, looking down at Eiji.

“I know.” Eiji seems smaller than he remembers; not just physically, but somehow emotionally, too, like exhaustion and numbness have settled into his bones and dragged him into himself. The light and warmth Ash remembers from him… it seems dimmed. Did… he do this?

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I’m sorry.”

Eiji shakes his head, his breath shaky as he sighs, and looks away. “Don’t be.”

“How can I not?” Ash gives in. The space between them is filled with memories and missed chances; he steps forward, cups Eiji’s cheek, and tips his face back up to look at him. “Eiji…”

Eiji squeezes his eyes shut. “It is okay, Ash,” he murmurs, but his voice betrays him, and a tear rolls down his cheek.

Guilt roils uncomfortably in the pit of Ash’s stomach. No matter what he does, Eiji gets hurt. Either by someone else, unable to leave them alone, or by Ash himself, just trying to… just trying… to keep him safe.

The thought makes him a little sick. He really is no better than the rest of them.

“Ash,” Eiji whispers, turning his face into Ash’s hand and holding it there with both of his, as if he’s terrified Ash will disappear if he lets go. “Ash, you are _here.”_

“I’m here.” Ash stares at him, unable to tear his gaze away even if he wanted to, just drinking him in—his hair has gotten longer, his face is pale and tired, his tears are still falling. He’s the most beautiful person to ever exist. “I’m here, Eiji.”

Eiji chokes on a tiny sob and turns a little more, hiding his face in Ash’s palm. “Thank you,” he whispers, shoulders shaking. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Ash aches to hold him, to wrap his arms around him and press him close to his chest and never, ever let go, but he doesn’t. He can’t. “What in the world are you thanking me for?”

“For coming back.” Eiji scrubs a hand over his eyes and shakes his head; he’s still trembling, and Ash gently thumbs a tear away from his cheek. “For… for… for at least letting me see you alive and h-happy, one… one last t-time.”

Dread sets in, a rising wave that grows and grows and towers over him, and he knows he’ll drown in it soon. He knew this was inevitable, and yet he wasn’t prepared to actually hear Eiji say it. “…Yeah. I couldn’t… I had to see you again, with my own eyes. Turns out I was right, back then,” and he chuckles, but it comes out weak and watery.

“Right about what?” Eiji takes another shaky breath, obviously trying to stop crying, but another quiet sob wracks his body, and he hunches his shoulders as if to hide himself from Ash. It… hurts. It hurts a lot, seeing him like this.

“That even if you came back here, I’d be worried to death about you,” Ash answers softly. The red-and-gold sunset of that day and Eiji’s delighted smile both seem so far away, now. “I thought I would be fine, knowing… you were safe. Away from me. But… looks like I’m still immature and selfish, huh?”

Eiji’s eyes snap open, and for the first time Ash glimpses the fire he remembers in them—cozy and warm, but fierce, too, as he pushes Ash’s hand away from his face. “So that’s it? You came all this way just to assure yourself I am safe?”

Ash flounders. What did he say wrong? Eiji himself said this was it, the real last time they’d see each other.

So why does he feel so hollow inside?

“I…”

“I have been safe this entire time, Ash.” Eiji wraps his arms around himself, and suddenly the inches between them feel like miles and miles. “Safe, and… but that’s all that you wanted, right? You wanted to see me safe?”

“Eiji,” he tries, and the wave crashes over him, and he’s drowning, drowning, drowning. “I… I don’t understand. Of course I want you to be safe. And I know… I know I was—I put you in danger the entire time we were togeth—”

“I don’t _care,_ Ash!”

Eiji stamps his foot, fists clenched at his sides, as more hot tears spill down his cheeks. His cheeks are red and his eyes blaze, and for a moment Ash thinks he might slap him or something, but he doesn’t. He just glares at him, and then gasps, and covers his mouth with both hands as another sob forces its way up his throat.

“If all you came here for w-was to see that I am _safe,”_ and he practically spits the word _safe_ as he wipes his eyes, “then yes, I am, and you must be satisfied now, right? This is what you wanted?”

What he wanted? He wanted—god, how stupid, how childish—but what a lie it would be, if he tried to say he didn’t spend the plane ride daydreaming about getting to see Eiji again and being _happy_ for the first time in so long. About scooping him up and twirling him around and listening to him laugh, about getting ice cream with him and holding his hand over the table. About draping his arm around him on the subway home, about smiling down at him if he fell asleep on his shoulder. About putting his face into his hair and finding out if he still uses the same shampoo after two years.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” Ash admits, very very quietly.

Eiji’s shoulders slump, and all the fight goes out of him, and he buries his face in his hands and cries hoarsely into them. “Then… then what do you want? Don’t—please don’t… p-please don’t lie to me, this—this time.”

“I didn’t—I don’t want this to be it!” Ash surprises himself with the vehemence of his own words. “I don’t want this to be the last time I see you, I don’t want to leave again, I—I want to stay with you and let you show me you were right all along, that I—that I can—that I’m not always gonna be the—the one who—”

“That you can come back down the mountain,” Eiji whispers.

He’s peeping up over the tops of his fingers, eyes shining with tears, but the light is back in them—the same light Ash has ben aching for this whole time. And though the rest of his face is still hidden, Ash thinks he’s smiling.

“Yeah,” he says, voice rough, and clears his throat. “Yeah. I… I know it’s pathetic and I shouldn’t expect you to just drop your life and make room for me in it, but I… I didn’t know where else to go, and— _oof!”_

He stumbles back a step as Eiji throws himself into his arms, hugging him like his life depends on it, arms wound tight around his shoulders and face buried in his neck.

“Ash,” he cries, his voice muffled by Ash’s sweater, and he’s shaking as Ash wraps his arms around him too. “Ash, I missed you, I _missed_ you!”

Warmth pools in Ash’s chest, washing the dread away, and he closes his eyes as he bows his head, tucking his face into Eiji’s hair. It isn’t the same shampoo—he smells like jasmine, now. It feels fitting.

“I missed you too,” he murmurs. Eiji is solid and warm in his arms, crying and trembling and real, and now that he has him, Ash isn’t sure he can physically ever let go again. “Eiji. Eiji…”

Eiji clutches two fistfuls of his sweater and chokes on another sob, letting it out as a hoarse cough. “I was so, so worried about you,” he manages, voice ragged. “You knew, didn’t you? You had to know, this whole time, of course I would be worried, I… I couldn’t bear that that was how I left you…”

“I hoped you’d forget me,” Ash whispers into his hair. His arms tighten around Eiji of their own accord. “But I prayed you wouldn’t.”

“I could never, Ash.” Eiji shudders against his chest and shakes his head. “Never in my life.”

Ash closes his eyes. The tears come anyway, rolling down his cheeks into Eiji’s hair, two silent trails. “Eiji.”

“When—when I heard you were killed, that you died holding—holding my letter,” and Eiji’s breath hitches in his throat, until Ash holds him tighter, helplessly trying to console him, “I… I couldn’t _breathe_. The idea that you d-died like that, that you were all alone, I…”

Eiji’s hand reaches up, finds its way into his hair, and presses him close. Ash grits his teeth against the urge to fall to his knees and weep desperately like a little child, against the broken wail clawing its way up through his chest. Eiji always makes him feel like he can cry in peace. He’s not used to it.

“I wasn’t alone,” he answers, burying his face in Eiji’s hair again. He could turn his head and press a kiss to his temple from here. “You said it yourself, didn’t you? Your soul was with me, even though I didn’t know it at the time.”

Eiji hiccups on a tiny laugh, nose bumping against Ash’s throat. “I did say that, didn’t I,” he mumbles, and leans into him. “Ash.”

“Eiji.” Ash presses close to him, bowing his head and pulling Eiji closer to his chest, as if he can just fold himself into him and stay like that forever. “Eiji, I… I’m sorry.”

Eiji peeps up at him again, his teary eyes big and soft and so full of affection that Ash’s breath hitches and his thoughts fizzle to a halt for a few heartbeats. “Why?”

“I made you cry so much.” Ash breathes out slowly, but the tears don’t stop; there’s a void deep inside of him, and he doesn’t know how he’ll ever fill it up. “I took so long to even… to come here. To see you again, after you got shot trying to protect me. And for that, too. I’m sorry for… I don’t know. For everything. I’m sorry for all of it.”

“I am not,” Eiji murmurs, and with one hand he gently wipes away the tears running down Ash’s cheek. “I am so, so happy I met you, Ash.”

“I brought you so much pain,” Ash whispers, shaking his head. “You came into my world and you weren’t afraid of me so I clung to you, b-because I never—no one ever cared for me just because they cared. You did. You just cared, and I thought I could… I thought maybe if I had you, I’d be okay, but… You almost died, Eiji.”

“But I didn’t.” Eiji wraps his arm back around his neck and pulls him in close again, stroking his hair. “I am fine, Ash. I am _fine.”_

“You’re _not.”_ Ash shakes his head. “Look at you. You—you look like you aren’t eating. You look exhausted. You look so _sad,_ Eiji, so if—if you never met me, maybe you would be—”

“If I never met you, I might be dead,” Eiji says flatly.

Ash’s entire world grinds to a screeching halt, and he looks down at Eiji with wide eyes, uncomprehending. “W-what?”

Eiji smiles sadly. “Did Ibe-san ever tell you why he brought me to America as his assistant?”

Ash shakes his head slowly. “No. I thought you just were working with him. Why…?”

“After my injury, I… lost all sense of purpose.” Eiji looks down. Ash holds him, helplessly, and thinks back to the wonder in his eyes the day they met. “I had thought my whole life would be track. It was the only thing that made me feel free. And then one day, the doctors told me I couldn’t fly anymore. And that was it. I… gave up, Ash. I stopped eating, barely slept, ignored all my friends… I gave up on the thought of living. I didn’t know what else my life would be.

“And then Ibe-san came, and told my mother about a trip to America. Told me he wanted me to be his assistant. Said he thought it might do me some good, to get my mind off it. My body had healed by then, but my mind had not. I still thought I was broken. Worthless. Useless.”

“Eiji, _no,”_ Ash whispers, horrified. Those words are about him, not Eiji. Never Eiji. “No, no, you could never be—”

“And so you see,” Eiji says, smiling through his tears, “meeting you might have saved my life, Ash. I wish you did not have to suffer so much, with everything that happened, but… I would do it all over again, and gladly, if it meant I got to be with you. I met you. And I am so, so glad I did.”

“You’ve got it backwards.” Ash shakes his head, swallowing hard against the lump in his throat. “Meeting you saved my life.”

“And yet you saved me.” Eiji reaches up and thumbs away his tears again, then gently scrubs at his cheeks with his sleeve. “Hush, now. Don’t cry, Ash.”

“Look at yourself!” Ash laughs wetly, closing his eyes and leaning his cheek into his palm. “You stop crying first, then maybe I will.”

Eiji laughs, too, and there’s a brush of skin against his face, and he opens his eyes and Eiji is leaning into him, their foreheads pressed together and noses almost touching. The memory of a stolen kiss, years ago, rises to his mind, and he looks at Eiji’s closed eyes and soft smile and thinks for just a second of kissing him again, a second kiss to do it right this time. A kiss out of love, for no one else’s eyes. Just for them.

He doesn’t. Not yet.

But he doesn’t tell himself _never_. Instead, he wonders if Eiji still uses the same chapstick as back then, and thinks to himself that he’ll find out, someday.

“I taught you a few Japanese words, then,” Eiji murmurs, eyes still closed. “Can I teach you a couple more?”

“Always.” Ash closes his eyes again, too, drowning again but this time in the nearness of him, the slow, intoxicating feeling of _safety_ pervading all of his senses the longer Eiji holds him. He’s exhausted. His body feels heavy. He wants to rest.

Eiji’s fingers brush his jaw. “ _Tadaima,_ ” he says, and Ash sinks into him, relishing the way Eiji’s voice wraps so naturally around the sounds of his native tongue. He could listen to Eiji speak Japanese for hours, he thinks—and even without understanding a word, he would never be bored.

“Tadaima,” he repeats, and even in just one word he can hear the contrast of his own clumsy American accent. “What does it mean?”

“It means, ‘I am home’.” Eiji’s hand curves around his cheek and his thumb caresses over Ash’s cheekbone, stealing a lingering tear from his eyelashes. “ _Okaerinasai_ , Ash.”

There’s a difference in how Eiji says his name when he’s speaking English and how he says it in Japanese. In English, he’s gotten used to voiceless fricatives and glottal stops at the ends of words, but in Japanese his voice is smoother, and there’s almost an unspoken _-u_ at the end of _Ash._ Ash thinks he likes it.

Warmth kindles in the bottom of the pit in his stomach, and suddenly he’s on fire but he isn’t burning—he’s glowing. He opens his eyes, and Eiji is smiling. “And what does that mean?”

Eiji’s eyes are full of the same warmth. “Welcome home.”

“Oh.” Ash lets out a shaky breath. “Eiji.”

“Ash.” Eiji’s smile widens just a little, soft and happy despite the tears drying on his cheeks. “You really mean it?”

“Mean what?” Ash leans into his touch, just like Eiji did earlier. He’d mean anything, if it would keep Eiji smiling like this. He’d do anything.

“You want to stay,” Eiji says, and very gently rubs his nose against his. “You don’t want to leave anymore.”

“I mean it more than anything.” Ash breathes out slowly. “I… don’t want to be alone anymore. I’m so tired, Eiji.”

Eiji’s eyes flicker with something kind and sad, and then he strokes Ash’s cheek again, sweet and soft. “Then rest. Come home with me, and rest.”

“I would love to.” Ash closes his eyes again and breathes in. Eiji smells like home. “But, Eiji, I… I shouldn’t. I know… I know you’re not here to save me, that you aren’t going to fix me, that—I know Blanca was right, and—”

“Blanca?” Eiji stiffens in his arms. “What does he have to do with any of this?”

Ash blinks, looking down at him, and blinks again at the dark look in Eiji’s eyes. “He… he’s the one who told me to stop being so selfish, the night you were shot.” He doesn’t like to remember it, and judging by the way Eiji flinches, he doesn’t either. “Sorry. I… he just—he saved my life, when everything happened. But he told me, I shouldn’t use you as my stepping stone to freedom, that you weren’t there just to save me, and…”

“He’s the reason you were alone again?”

Ash doesn’t think he’s ever heard Eiji sound so cold, or so furious. “Eiji?”

“I hate him,” Eiji says, and his hand curls into a fist in Ash’s sweater. “I _hate him.”_

“He wasn’t saying it to be malicious,” Ash murmurs, rubbing his back to try and soothe him. “It’s okay. He was trying to keep you from being hurt more than you were.”

“Bullshit!” Eiji bites out, stamping his foot again. He’s _pissed,_ Ash thinks, looking down at him, and something about that makes his chest tighten. “He was not! Do not defend him, Ash, he—he—he had no place telling you to stay away from me for my own good! Staying with you was _my_ choice, and it was never your fault! How dare he suggest it was your fault I was hurt?”

“Eiji,” Ash tries, gently, but his heart aches and his eyes water, and he can’t stop the next word from slipping out. “Darling. I… It was, you know, it was my fault—”

“It was not!” Eiji shakes his head vehemently, and he’s trembling again, as he stands there in Ash’s arms. “It was not, it was not, it was not! You cannot blame yourself for other people’s actions! Stop! He is a bastard for telling you that any of it was your fault! What about me?! Does my heart not matter?! I knew it was dangerous, and I chose to stay! Because you were—you _are_ worth that to me! Who is he to come in and tell you that you are not?!”

Eiji’s crying again, tears streaking down his face, and he’s trembling, but it’s from rage this time, Ash realizes, and he clutches at him. “Eiji, Eiji, I didn’t… he wasn’t… Eiji…”

“Do not tell me ‘it’s okay’ or anything like that!” Eiji warns, dashing furiously at his cheeks. “I hate him, Ash, how _dare_ he hurt you like that, I hate him, I _hate_ him!”

“Eiji,” Ash repeats, helplessly. “Eiji…”

He doesn’t know if anyone has ever been so angry on his behalf before. Probably never. And here Eiji is, so furious he’s crying, all because Blanca told him…

…He can’t bring himself to call it the truth, even in his mind. Not right now.

“Eiji,” he whispers, again. “I, I lo—I love—I, I—”

Eiji flings his arms around his neck and hugs him so hard he stumbles back another step, until his hip bumps the desk behind him. “You do not have to say it right now,” Eiji breathes, cradling the back of his head. “I know. I love you too. You can take all the time you need to say it, Ash, we have _time_ , we have so much time now.”

“Eiji.” Ash whispers his name again, and again, _“Eiji,”,_ like it’s the only word he knows anymore, and it may as well be—there’s a thousand and one ways to say what he feels, and none of them are poignant enough, elegant enough, _true_ enough, and the only language left to him is Eiji, Eiji, Eiji.

“Come on, Ash.” Eiji loosens his arms, just enough to draw back and look at him. He’s smiling again, even as he shrugs one shoulder to wipe his face on it. “Let’s go home.”

“That sounds nice,” Ash agrees, bowing his head to touch his nose to Eiji’s again. He can’t leave. Not now, not ever. “Home.”

“You must be jetlagged.” Eiji scrunches his fingers through his hair, and there’s so much warmth in his eyes again—as if the rage was never there—and Ash could melt into him forever, he thinks, could lose himself in the love in Eiji’s heart and never ever come back out. “Come on. You can sleep some while I get my sister.”

“Your sister?” Ash asks, voice soft. “She’s coming here?”

“Yeah.” Eiji smiles, soft and sweet. “Spending Christmas here. I don’t have class off, but she and her friends are coming for the Christmas markets in Tokyo.”

“Oh.” Wonder rises in his chest, too, and he slowly lets go of Eiji to take his hand. “We could go together, too.”

“We could,” Eiji agrees, still smiling up at him, like he’s forgotten how to look away. “I would like that.”

“Sorry I didn’t get you a Christmas present,” Ash adds, wrinkling his nose.

Eiji just laughs and squeezes his hand. “What are you talking about?” he asks, and glances at the latte, forgotten on the desk. “This… is the best present I could ever have gotten.”

“Oh,” Ash murmurs, and squeezes back.


	2. because here, for the first time, i can breathe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ash meets Eiji's sister, has some revelations about freedom, and begins to learn the meaning of _forever_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for discussion of passive suicidal ideation, depression and irrational thoughts, trauma, etc. Ash is a whole grab bag of mental illness. u know how it be.
> 
> also, shoutout to AO3 user Ji_Jian for leaving me some very soft comments yesterday that reminded me I forgot to upload this chapter! oops

When they get to Eiji’s apartment, the sun is high in the sky—it’s an hour or two past noon, and by all rights, the day should be in full swing. But exhaustion has settled deep into Ash’s bones, and Eiji next to him doesn’t look too much better off; he turns the key in the lock, pushes the door open, and sighs wearily.

“Shoes off,” he warns, pointing to the shoerack by the door. “None of your dirty American habits in my house.”

Just like before. Ash huffs out a short laugh and toes out of his boots, kicking them in the general direction of the rack. “Whatever you say.”

Maybe he should be more of a smartass—isn’t that what he usually does? Maybe that would make him feel more normal in this situation. But he’s so tired, and Eiji is right here, and he’s drowning in him.

Eiji slips his sneakers off, glances around the bare walls, and sighs again. “You can have my bed,” he says. “I do not have a guest room, so you can sleep in mine. You look exhausted.”

“What about you?” Ash balks. “You, too.”

“Me?” Eiji blinks, surprised, and laughs, shaking his head. “No, no, I am fine. I’ll make some tea and…”

He trails off and covers his mouth, yawning, and flushes pink, caught in his lie. Ash tuts at him as he strips out of his coat and tosses it at the sofa. “You should take a nap, too.”

Eiji flounders. “No, it is okay, I will be fine,” he protests, but the exhaustion in his eyes begs to differ, and Ash doesn’t think he can survive watching Eiji push himself to stay awake just to make himself suffer.

So as Eiji pulls his hoodie over his head and drapes it over the back of the sofa, Ash changes tactics. “Will you at least sit with me until I fall asleep?”

Eiji pauses, tipping his head to one side. “You want me to?”

Aha. Got him. Ash nods, following him toward the bedroom. “I… have never been good at falling asleep in new places,” he says, and though it isn’t a lie, it isn’t the complete truth, either: he’s exhausted enough that he dozed off in the café earlier. And he’s always been able to fall asleep easily around Eiji, because if Eiji is there, he’s always felt safe, so it stands to reason that in his apartment, he wouldn’t feel unsafe.

So maybe it’s the truth, after all. He needs Eiji there.

“Oh!” Eiji nods earnestly, opening the bedroom door. “Of course. I can sit with you as long as you need, just rest…”

Eiji’s bedroom is as neat and soulless as the rest of his apartment, aside from a few photos in a frame above his bed. There’s the bed, a desk and chair, and his closet, plus a chest of drawers with a few books stacked on top. Ash glances around briefly, but his leaden limbs carry him to the bed, and he sits down heavily with a groan.

“Rest,” Eiji says again, touching his shoulder.

Ash catches his hand. “Stay?”

Eiji melts—Ash can see it in his face, the way his eyes go soft and the corners of his mouth twist up into an almost-smile. “Of course, Ash.”

Ash scoots in toward the wall to make room for him, but doesn’t lay down until Eiji sits, too. “Thanks.”

The bed sinks as Eiji scoots in a little closer, hesitating before he slips his legs under the blanket and pulls it up over them both. “Are you cold?”

“Only a little.” Ash accepts the blanket anyway, closing his eyes against the pounding in his head. The pillow is soft and smells like Eiji’s hair. His chest tightens, and he opens his eyes again. “Hey… Eiji?”

Eiji looks down at him with the same soft eyes. “Yes?”

Ash bites his lip. He shouldn’t ask more—he’s already asking so much—but his heart is small and bruised and aching, and he wants Eiji to rest, too; is it bad that those two desires overlap in wanting to pull Eiji into his arms?

“Ash?”

“Could you—”

He gives up on wording it as soon as he tries to voice it; instead, he just reaches for Eiji’s wrist and pulls him down to the bed. Eiji lets him rearrange him without brooking a single complaint, until Ash gets him to lay down and quietly leans his forehead against Eiji’s collarbone.

“Ash,” Eiji says, soft and helpless, as he wraps one arm around Ash’s shoulders. “You want me to stay like this?”

“Please,” Ash requests, closing his eyes again. Eiji makes him feel safe. He won’t rest without him—he knows he could sleep in this bed feeling safe, even alone; it smells like Eiji, and that puts him at ease, but he refuses to let himself sleep unless Eiji gets to sleep, too. Eiji is tired and small and sad, and he needs to recharge.

“Okay.” Eiji rubs his back. “I…”

He laughs, a soft, breathy sound, and buries his face in Ash’s hair. Warmth pulses in Ash’s chest.

“I missed you so, _so_ much,” he admits. “I used to daydream about this.”

“You daydreamed about getting me in your bed?” Ash mumbles, smiling against his shirt. “How scandalous, Eiji.”

“You know what I mean!” Eiji gently smacks his shoulder, more of a hard tap than anything, and huffs. Ash can feel the rise and fall of his chest as he blows that breath out, and warmth spreads through his limbs. He feels peaceful, relaxed, and at home— _content_ —for the first time in…

For the first time since…

He can’t remember.

“I do,” he mumbles, draping his arm about Eiji’s waist. “I missed you, too. Every day.”

“I am so happy you are here.” Eiji gives him a gentle squeeze, his voice breathy and soft, and draws the blanket up to Ash’s shoulders, tucking him in. “I really was going crazy without you.”

Ash presses a little closer to him. This sparse apartment speaks volumes—the walls are empty, utterly devoid of any signs of love, even though the embodiment of it has been living here for over a year. “I’m sorry.”

He can feel Eiji’s heart beating, and he focuses on it, holding Eiji close. He’s alive, and safe, and healed. No more blood, no more weakness.

“I already forgave you, Ash.” Eiji sighs, and a moment later, kisses his hair. Ash freezes, electrified, and opens his eyes, his nose bumping against Eiji’s collarbone as he tips his head up.

“You…”

Eiji hesitates, eyes warm and dark, and then very tentatively presses his lips to Ash’s forehead. Ash’s breath catches in his throat, and Eiji bites his lip. “Is this okay?” he asks, withdrawing. “Or should I not?”

“It’s okay,” Ash whispers, chest suddenly tight. It’s just a kiss. But—but no one has ever pressed soft kisses into his hair, or given him gentle forehead kisses to soothe him, and he can’t stop staring up at Eiji, drinking in the sweetness of his face. “I just—I never—you can—nobody—”

“Do you like it if I kiss you?” Eiji’s hand leaves his back and slides forward to cup his face. “I won’t if you do not like it, Ash.”

Ash drowns in the affection in his eyes for a long moment before he remembers how to breathe. “I… I like it. A lot. Do—do you?”

Eiji smiles at that, and kisses his forehead again. Ash’s breath catches in his throat. “I wouldn’t have done it if I did not like to,” he points out, and kisses Ash’s brow, too. “Now close your eyes. Sleep. I will be here.”

“Okay,” Ash agrees, and burrows in close to him. His warmth fills a gaping hole in Ash’s chest, soothing an ache he wasn’t even aware of, until he feels weary and heavy and content. “Okay.”

Despite his exhaustion, it takes him a while to fall asleep. He would normally be annoyed—he’s normally good at falling asleep fast, if he feels safe enough to—but despite being awake, he feels at rest, laying there with his nose pressed to Eiji’s chest. It’s quiet and peaceful, under the blanket, with Eiji’s arm still loosely draped over his shoulders and his chin atop his head.

In Corsica, it’s so late it’s almost looped back around to being early, and his limbs are leaden. He sighs and nuzzles into Eiji’s chest.

Eiji’s hand rubs his back, gentle and slow, in response, and after a moment, Eiji kisses his hair again so tenderly that Ash feels tears prick at his eyes again, and he tries to find words but fails. “Mm?”

Eiji chuckles, low and rumbly in his chest. “Sleep,” he murmurs, drowsiness evident in his voice. “Sleep, my sweet Ash.”

Ash hasn’t slept in the same bed with someone since Eiji left New York, and even then, they mostly slept separately; he never wanted to make Eiji uncomfortable, and he never wanted to hurt him when he woke up flailing from a nightmare. But this—this loose tangle of limbs, their bodies curled carelessly against each other without a care in the world—this feels right.

And Eiji holds him so easily that he wonders if their separation back in New York was really for Eiji’s sake.

(He was always a coward.)

But he’s here now, wrapped in Eiji’s embrace, and even if he only were to have this now, for this one nap, he’ll gladly take it and not go begging for more. Eiji’s heart beats slow and steady in his chest, and Ash could weep from the sound of it, every _thump-thump_ another reminder that Eiji’s here, and safe, and warm, and alive.

“Eiji,” he murmurs.

There’s no response, save the slow rise and fall of Eiji’s chest.

Clumsy affection surges and crashes over him like a wave, and he smiles, turning his head just a little to press a tiny kiss to Eiji’s collarbone, over his shirt; that’s not enough, though, so he decides to try something else—try again, rather.

And maybe it’s just that the moment is soft and peaceful and he feels safe, or maybe it’s that the ache deep in his soul is finally healing, or maybe the entire world has shifted in a grand rearrangement beyond his cognition. Maybe it’s nothing. But it comes out easily this time, with no difficulty, as his lips brush Eiji’s shirt.

“I love you,” Ash tells him, soft and sure. “I love you.”

Eiji sighs in his sleep. Ash smiles.

He closes his eyes again, and rest finally takes him.

* * *

Piano notes cut into the haze of his sleep, and Ash groans, confused. Where’s Eiji? What…

“Shh,” Eiji murmurs, and the piano vanishes. An alarm, he realizes belatedly. “Sleep, sleep. It is okay.”

But Eiji is pulling away from him, slipping out of the bed, and bewildered and upset, Ash latches onto him tighter, pressing his face into Eiji’s back with a muffled whine of distress. Did he do something? Why is Eiji leaving? Eiji?

“Oh, Ash _,”_ Eiji says, with a little laugh that sounds suspiciously close to tears, and Ash pulls him back to his chest, tangling their legs together, too. “Ash, let go.”

“Eiji,” he whimpers. A more awake Ash wouldn’t be so pathetic, and he knows that, but he’s sleepy and Eiji makes him feel safe, and he doesn’t want Eiji to leave him. He deserves it, but he doesn’t want it. “Don’t leave me.”

“I have to go get my sister, Ash,” Eiji murmurs, rolling over in his arms to hug him close. He’s warm. Ash sinks into his arms and sighs. “It is almost time for her train to arrive. You can sleep more. It is okay.”

Ash buries his face in Eiji’s neck and breathes. He smells like jasmine. “You’ll… come back?”

“Oh, _Ash_ ,” Eiji murmurs again, and gives him a tight squeeze. He’s warm. Ash’s frozen heart needs him close. “Of course I will. Don’t you go anywhere while I am out, okay? If you are not here when I get back I will cry,” he says, and presses a tender, lingering kiss to Ash’s forehead.

“Won’t go. Don’t cry,” Ash mumbles lamely, opening his eyes and blinking blearily. The light coming in from the window is dim, and Eiji is already pulling away again. “Eiji?”

Eiji slips out of bed and leans down, and kisses his forehead again, his hand cupping Ash’s cheek. “It will not be that long. You can sleep a little more. Okay?”

Ash misses his warmth and the weight of him curled up next to him already. He nuzzles into Eiji’s hand and sighs. “Mm.”

“If you get up before I get back, feel free to help yourself to anything in the apartment if you want it.” Eiji’s fingers scrunch through his hair. “See you soon, sweet Ash.”

And then he’s gone—Ash vaguely hears him shuffling about in the living room for a few minutes, and then the jingle of keys, and then the door opens and closes and it’s silent.

He buries his face in the pillow and pulls the blanket up over his head. The bed isn’t as warm or comfortable without Eiji, but if he closes his eyes and breathes in, it still smells like him, and he can pretend a while longer.

But despite trying for several minutes, he can’t fall back asleep; he tosses and turns and tosses and turns, until finally he gives up and blows out an exasperated breath, stares up at the dim ceiling, and heaves a sigh.

He gets out of bed after another minute or so, finds the backpack he discarded by Eiji’s front door, and rummages around until he finds his toiletry bag. His mouth tastes like several-hours-old coffee breath, and it’s gross. He wants to freshen up, especially if he’s about to meet Eiji’s sister.

Eiji’s sister. The first member of Eiji’s family he’ll meet.

God. He thinks about how tired and sad Eiji looked, and stares himself down in the mirror as he brushes his teeth. He did that to Eiji. His sister must hate him, and she’d be right to.

Once he’s brushed his teeth and washed his face and dragged a comb through his hair a few times, he feels more like a human being again; he hesitates before dropping his toothbrush into the cup next to Eiji’s, then leaves the bathroom.

It’s a little drafty in the apartment. Ash considers putting his coat back on, meandering out to the living room again to get it from the couch, and stops.

Eiji’s hoodie is still there. His coat is not.

“Eiji,” he whispers, chest suddenly tight with emotion, and laughs to himself, shaking his head as he wipes his eyes. He can’t _believe_ —

He can absolutely believe Eiji did this. But oh, god, does it make him want to break down and cry again, as if he hasn’t cried enough already. He loves Eiji. He loves him more than life itself.

He looks around the apartment again, at its bare walls and sparse furniture. _Eiji_ , he thinks, brushing his fingers along the back of the couch. Eiji bought this cheap futon and that little two-peron dining table. Hung the curtains up over that window. Stacked the dishes in the rack by the sink. Eiji breathed life into this place, but it looks like he hardly had any to give it.

Well, if Eiji stole his coat, Ash figures he’s allowed to go raid his closet. After all, the hoodie on the couch is too small, and Eiji said he can help himself to whatever he finds, right?

He knows Eiji likes to collect sweaters that are too large for him—he says they’re extra cozy—and they happen to fit Ash pretty well, so he’s not worried that he won’t find anything. He heads back into the bedroom and opens Eiji’s closet door, spotting the stack of neatly folded sweaters easily.

And—

He pauses.

The one on the bottom, tucked under all the rest, is familiar.

Very familiar.

It’s _his._ Chocolate brown, chunky-knit, cashmere. He thought he’d lost it sometime while they lived in that expensive-ass apartment together.

Who knew?

Chuckling, he carefully lifts the stack and pulls his sweater out from the bottom. Eiji’s really had it this long, huh? There’s no question that it’s the same sweater he remembers—when he unfolds it, there’s a slight discoloration on the right cuff, on the back of the sleeve, from a slight bloodstain that never completely came out.

Ash pulls it over his head and presses the sleeves to his face for a long moment. It smells like Eiji.

He closes his eyes.

Back in New York, a lifetime ago, he pulled this sweater over Eiji’s head one chilly morning, when he returned to their apartment so late it was early, and the light of dawn was just barely peeking over the horizon.

Eiji had a cup of tea, steaming in his hand, as he gazed out the window, lost in thought—so lost in thought that he didn’t hear Ash come in until he greeted him, and then he jumped clean out of his skin, spilling tea all over his hand. It got the sleeve of his jacket wet, so Ash pulled off his own sweater to replace it.

Eiji was quiet, that morning; they watched the sunrise together, before Eiji went to begin his day, and Ash went to bed. But he remembers the stillness of the dawn, as the two of them sat, shoulders touching but barely, and watched the sun rise.

His chest hurts, suddenly, and he has to sit down hard on the edge of the bed, aching aching _aching_ deep in his heart for Eiji. New York feels worlds and lifetimes away, like a dream, and the present is just his sorry attempt at picking up the pieces. Maybe this is the dream, and he just doesn’t remember how to wake up.

Eiji kept his sweater. All this time, and Eiji still had it, neatly folded and stacked in his closet with all his other clothes.

“Eiji,” he whispers, again, digging his fingers into the edge of the mattress. He can picture it all too clearly, now: Eiji, alone, sitting in this room, holding this sweater. Thinking of him, dying alone in that library, as the plane that bore him carried him further and further away by the second.

Did Eiji think it was his own fault? Did he ever wonder what he could’ve done to save him?

Does Eiji think he didn’t already save him?

“Eiji,” Ash whispers to the empty room. “Eiji. Eiji, come back.”

He grabs the pillow from the bed when he realizes his voice is threatening to crack, and hugs it tight to his chest. It makes a poor substitute for Eiji, but it smells like him, and Ash buries his face in it and breathes, shaky and close to tears for a reason he doesn’t think he could articulate if he tried.

Eiji.

He loves Eiji. He loves Eiji so fiercely and desperately and wholly that it scares him, sometimes, the way his love consumes him and burns him and soothes him and heals him, until he doesn’t know how to feel because love is supposed to hurt—

Except that Eiji’s love has always, always been kind, and he’s starting to think that the other men lied when they told him what love meant.

And of course they lied. It’s fucking stupid to think they would’ve done anything but. They said whatever they needed to say to control him, to break him, to keep him; of course they never loved him. Of course not. And he knows that wasn’t love, but he’s never known what _is._

But Eiji knows love. Eiji loves him, and it’s terrifying. It’s exhilarating. It’s… it’s…

It feels, Ash thinks, like flying.

No wonder, then, that Eiji is love. Love is the semblance of flight, the moment suspended in between earth and sky. Love is that release from gravity.

Love is freedom.

Ash has never been free before.

Finally free, he sits in Eiji’s lonesome apartment and buries his face in this pillow that smells like Eiji, and he weeps.

By the time Eiji’s key sounds in the door, Ash has dried his tears, washed his face again, and meandered back into the kitchen; he’s pouring hot water from the kettle into three cups with jasmine teabags in them when it opens.

“Tadaima!” Eiji calls, breathless and red-cheeked from the cold. He’s carrying a suitcase that must be his sister’s, and Ash’s coat is too broad on him and the sleeves are bunched up around his wrists. It’s hopelessly endearing, and Ash’s heart squeezes in his chest.

“Eiji,” he says, and then ducks his head. “Ok—okaer… Welcome home.”

Eiji toes out of his sneakers and carries the suitcase further in, and a girl in a floppy pink hat appears behind him. Ash looks at her, trying to see what kind of person Eiji’s little sister is, and takes her in: a fashionable white coat, pink leggings, and black boots, paired with a scarf printed with strawberries, and her hair in two slightly messy braids that hang down a little past her shoulders. She has the same big, soft eyes as Eiji.

She stops, halfway through unzipping her boots, and stares at him. Ash slowly lowers the kettle and stares back.

“Okaeri,” Eiji says warmly, closing and locking the door again. “You almost had it! Nahoko, here is a great opportunity for you to practice your English. This is Ash! Ash, this is my sister, Nahoko.”

Eiji turns, then, and stops dead.

“Ash,” he breathes.

“I, uh… made you tea,” Ash says, a little self-conscious. Nahoko is still staring at him. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you?”

He comes forward and holds out his hand tentatively, offering a handshake.

Nahoko…

Nahoko struggles to wrangle her boots off without unzipping them further, hops on one foot and grabs onto Eiji’s shoulder for support, and finally drops them to the floor. Eiji makes a disapproving noise when she doesn’t neatly line them up on the wall, but she ignores him, instead marching across the living room, into the kitchen, up to Ash, lifting her hand, and—

Socks him in the chest.

Ash blinks.

“Ow?”

 _“Nahoko!”_ Eiji looks utterly shocked. He strides forward and grabs her arm, jerks her away, and starts lecturing her in rapid Japanese, his voice low and angry.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Ash interrupts, touching his shoulder, and Eiji turns on him, eyes flashing. Ash quickly holds up both hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m just saying—I deserve that, and you did the same thing—”

“Ash!” Eiji bats at his arm. “Stop. You cannot just let people punch you and say ‘that’s fine, I deserve it’, I know you are a stupid self-sacrificing idiot and—”

“Shut _up,_ Nii-san!” Nahoko interrupts, shoving at Eiji’s arm. “He made you cry _so much_ only to just show up and be like ‘hi, I am a stupid American and I lied about being dead for two years’?! And you _let him?”_

Ash winces again. That’s pretty much exactly what happened, isn’t it?

“This is why you were so quiet the whole way here?” Eiji demands, rounding on Nahoko again. “And here I thought you were just tired, but you were planning to punch Ash all along?”

“She has a point,” Ash murmurs, touching Eiji’s shoulder again. “It’s okay. You’re allowed to be mad at me. She is, too.”

Nahoko stamps her foot, angrily strips off her coat, and hurls it at the couch, followed by her hat. “And you! Where were you?! My brother _loves_ you! How dare you lie to him like this?! How could you just play with his heart—”

 _“Nahoko!”_ Eiji reprimands sharply. “Shut up, right now, or I will put you right back on a train to Izumo! Say sorry to Ash!”

“You don’t have to say sorry to me,” Ash tells her quickly. “Eiji. She’s right. Will you let me explain?”

Nahoko clenches her fists at her sides. “No! I am trying to yell at you! Stop being so reasonable!”

“So you just want to be mad at him!” Eiji accuses.

This is fucking ridiculous.

Ash wraps his arm around Eiji’s waist and pulls him close, tucks him against his side. It has the desired effect; some of the fight goes out of Eiji’s body, and he melts against him. It also has the desired effect of making Ash feel better, because he’s holding Eiji, and he’s been craving Eiji’s touch since he left. Nahoko glares at him for it, but he doesn’t let go.

“To begin with, I got stabbed,” he says, before Nahoko can retort, and he sees the words die in her mouth as her eyes go big and round and wide.

“Oh,” she whispers, and looks at Eiji, saying something in Japanese that he doesn’t understand.

“English,” Eiji reminds her, but there’s much less ire in his voice now. He wraps his arm around Ash’s waist, too, as if to reassure himself there’s no blood, no knife.

“I… Eiji did not tell me that part,” Nahoko manages, staring at Ash. “You… you… got stabbed? Why?”

Ash sighs. _Because I killed my best friend_ seems… like a horrible thing to say in front of Eiji, right now, and he doesn’t want to do anything to hint to an innocent child like Nahoko that something like Banana Fish could exist.

Wow. She’s seventeen, Eiji told him, and he’s thinking of her as a child. He thinks of himself at seventeen, by comparison, and has to stifle an incredulous laugh. What’s gotten into him?

“It’s… complicated,” he finally says. “Maybe I’ll tell you the whole story another time.”

“But—”

“Nahoko.” Eiji gives her a quelling glance. “He has had a long flight, and just got here today. He is very tired. Please do not make him tell every upsetting story right now.”

Ash’s heart squeezes in his chest again. Time has passed, but Eiji is still Eiji. He still doesn’t know the details of Ash’s time in Corsica, either, but he’s already defending him, taking care of him without even needing to be asked.

He doesn’t think about it; he just turns his head and presses his lips to Eiji’s hair. “Thanks,” he murmurs, and Eiji looks up at him, eyes wide.

“It takes two years to recover from being stabbed?” Nahoko asks, mirroring Eiji’s wide-eyed shock. “Is that where you were?”

Ash sighs. “Well… no. It only takes a few months to fully recover from getting stabbed. But… ah, fuck, how do I put it… I needed to make sure the guys who wanted me dead wouldn’t come after Eiji. So I let them think I died, so they’d stop looking for me and I could go in and take care of them, but they have a pretty extensive intelligence network—”

“They are good at spying,” Eiji clarifies, when Nahoko’s brow furrows.

“Right,” Ash says, a little embarrassed. “Sorry. The thing is just, I had to make them think I was dead, and to do that convincingly, I couldn’t tell anyone I was alive.”

“You… you’re like a _spy?”_ Nahoko asks, and frowns. “But you just look… normal.”

“What, exactly,” Eiji sighs, “do you think a good spy looks like?”

Nahoko gasps. “You are right!”

It’s a gross oversimplification, and leaves far too much out to even approach the truth, but she’s too young and innocent to know it. Ash just laughs and shakes his head. “Not really a spy,” he says, finally. “But I guess you could say something like that.”

Nahoko nods, most of her earlier ire forgotten. “That’s… cool. But then… so is that why Nii-san got shot?”

Ash flinches. Something shatters. It takes him a moment to realize it was his heart.

“Nahoko!” Eiji hisses, his arm tightening like a vice around Ash’s waist.

“Yeah,” Ash agrees numbly, his voice hollow and his chest full of shards of broken glass. “That was—”

“It was not your fault!” Eiji looks up at him, eyes blazing. “I will fly to the Caribbean and fight Blanca myself, Ash, do not test me! It was not your fault!”

Ash bites his lip and takes a shaky breath. His lungs protest mightily against each stab. “Eiji…”

Nahoko looks back and forth between them, eyes wide again. “Who is Blanca…?”

“A horrible, horrible man.” Eiji looks from Ash back to her, but his voice is cold again, in a way that still takes Ash by surprise. “He is the reason Ash was not here for two years, Nahoko. It was not Ash’s fault.”

“Oh.” Nahoko’s face clouds with something between worry and guilt, and she looks nervously up at Ash. “Um… sorry. I should have punched Blanca, then?”

Ash barks out a laugh at just the thought of this tiny slip of a girl trying to sock Blanca in the face—she probably wouldn’t be able to reach!—and feels some of the glass in his chest melt back into nothingness. “No. He didn’t mean any harm. He thought—”

“Ash.” Eiji looks up at him again, eyes dark with restrained anger. “A man who tells you that it was your fault someone else attacked us is a man who means harm.”

“He didn’t want you to end up like his wife.” Ash glances at Nahoko, uncertain if they should be talking so plainly in front of her, but Eiji doesn’t seem to care, because he puts both hands on his shoulders and shakes his head.

“Saying what he said to you was horrible of him, Ash.” He gently squeezes Ash’s shoulders. “You do not have to defend him. I will never, ever forgive him.”

“You…” Ash sighs. “You don’t have to forgive him, but… he didn’t… it wasn’t that…”

Nahoko looks between them both, uncertain, and then blows out a sigh. “Ooookay,” she says, awkwardly sticking her leg out and stepping to the side. “You two have this… lover’s quarrel. I am going to take the biggest of these cups of tea over here. Bye-bye.”

 _“Lover’s quarrel?”_ Eiji splutters, incredulous, and Ash almost laughs.

“Hey, Nahoko.” He extricates himself from Eiji and stops her with a tap on the shoulder. “One tip.”

“Huh?” Nahoko looks up at him, and wrinkles her nose, just like Eiji does. “Ugh. You really _are_ tall. What do you want?”

Ash does laugh, this time. So Eiji complained about him being tall, huh?

“When you throw a punch, next time,” he instructs, taking her wrist gently and lifting her hand, “you should put your thumb over your knuckles, like this, instead of under. That way, you won’t run the risk of breaking it.”

Her hands are small and delicate in his—there are no scars, no calluses from holding a knife or a gun. Her nails are painted a pretty light pink with tiny strawberries, to match her scarf, maybe, and the idea of her throwing a real punch in a fight is as jarring as the idea of Eiji holding his gun, the day they met.

Nahoko doesn’t seem to notice any of that. She just blinks, looks down at her fist in his hand, and nods earnestly. “Thumb over fingers. Okay! Got it.”

She turns on her heel, flounces back over to Eiji, and promptly punches him in the arm.

“Ow!” Eiji complains, smacking her on the head. “I did not even do anything!”

“No, but you were going to eventually.” Nahoko looks pleased with herself; Ash snorts. “It was…”

She finishes the sentence in Japanese, looking at Eiji questioningly, and Eiji sighs deeply. “A preemptive strike,” he translates, and gives Ash a look full of reproach. “You did this.”

“Go get him to kiss it better, already,” Nahoko says, very unsympathetic. “I cannot wait to third wheel my entire vacation.”

“You don’t know ‘preemptive strike’ but you know ‘third wheeling’?” Ash asks, amused, as Nahoko marches past him to the kitchen counter and takes the biggest mug, true to her statement, and blows on it. “How’s that?”

“She watches a lot of American TV shows,” Eiji sighs.

“I could guess.” Ash watches her take it out of the kitchen, back to the living room, and plop down on the couch. “She’s got more of a Midwestern neutral than you. Almost Valley girl, but not quite. You both still have the Japanese accent, I mean, but you picked up a lil bit of a New York lilt.”

Eiji blinks. “I did?”

Ash chuckles fondly. “Yeah,” he says, and holds out an arm, an unspoken invitation for Eiji to come hold him again. “Not too much, you’re not an obnoxious Brooklyn fuck or anything, but you sound a lil like Bones when you talk, sometimes.”

“Oh.” Eiji comes willingly, wrapping his arms around Ash’s waist and leaning into him, head on his shoulder. “I never knew that. Do you have an accent in English, too? I cannot tell at all.”

“Midwestern neutral.” Ash folds his arms around him, sighing in contentment. Eiji fits snugly in his arms, like they were made to be together, two halves of one whole. “I think when I was little I prolly sounded more like everyone else in Cape Cod, but Golzine got a speech coach to train that outta me real fast.”

“Oh.” Eiji blows out a breath against his neck. “Do you miss it?”

Ash shakes his head. “Never felt enough attachment to the place to want to sound like it. I don’t care.”

“Mm.” Eiji closes his eyes, and his eyelashes brush Ash’s neck. It sends a shiver down his spine. “Ash?”

“Yeah?”

“You found the sweater.” Eiji nuzzles his neck, and his heart lurches in response. “I… kept it. I hoped one day you would come here, and I could give it back.”

Ash’s chest tightens again. “You don’t have to give it back,” he murmurs, holding Eiji close. “It’s practically already yours.”

Eiji lets out a breathy chuckle and shakes his head.

“Did you… wear it?” Ash asks carefully. “Or did you just keep it with you?”

“I used to wear it.” Eiji’s arms tighten around him. “But I cried for hours the day I realized it did not smell like you anymore.”

“Oh, Eiji,” Ash breathes, and he squeezes Eiji to himself _tight,_ wishing he could push away all the lines between them and just melt into him, soul-to-soul, until all the cracks in their wounded hearts mend. “Eiji. Eiji.”

“Don’t say sorry again.” Eiji squeezes him back. “Just… just stay.”

“For how long?” Ash asks, closing his eyes. “I’ll stay as long as you want me.”

“I’ll want you forever.”

Ash inhales sharply. Eiji said as much before, the night Shorter died— _I’ll wait for you, forever_ —and again, weeks later, as Ash sobbed into his lap. Forever, forever, forever.

“Forever is a long time,” he manages, squeezing his eyes shut as they prickle in warning. “You sure?”

“I have been sure all along, Ash.” Eiji rubs his back, slow and reassuring. “I think you are the one who has not.”

Ash breathes in. Lets it out. Eiji is right, of course. He shakes his head, presses his lips together, and tries one more time.

“You… you want me to stay forever?”

“Yes.” Eiji doesn’t even hesitate. “Nothing would make me happier.”

“I’m a mess,” Ash warns. His hands are trembling. Hopefully, Eiji hasn’t noticed. “I still have nightmares constantly, and I forget to make the bed, and I don’t have a sleep schedule either, and I get petty when I’m annoyed, and—”

“Ash, Ash, Ash,” Eiji breaks in, lifting his head from his shoulder to look up at him. His eyes are so tender, alight with warm, heady affection, that Ash’s vision blurs with tears again. “I know.”

Eiji’s hand cups his jaw, and Eiji kisses his cheek, gentle as can be. Ash takes a shaky breath.

“And you—you still want me?” he asks, because he has to hear Eiji say it again. “Despite… despite how fucked up I am?”

“I want you,” Eiji says, and purses his lips. “Not… despite. Not ‘because’, either, but… you… the things that people have done to you,” and he frowns, shaking his head. “The things that have hurt you. They do not make me love you any less.”

“You love a murderer and a kid whore?” Ash takes another ragged breath, his throat closing. “You love a, a—”

“Ash,” Eiji interrupts, very softly. “No matter what you call yourself, my answer will always be the same. I love you.”

The tears spill over, and Ash bows his head and buries his face in Eiji’s hair, trembling. “I… I… Eiji…”

“Shhhh.” Eiji hugs him close and rubs his back in big, slow, soothing circles. “Oh, Ash. I love you so much. Everything will be okay. Just stay. Stay with me.”

“I want to,” Ash whispers, clutching two weak fistfuls of his own coat, still wrapped around Eiji’s shoulders. “I want to, oh, god.”

“Then you can.” Eiji rubs his back again. “No one will stop you. Shh, shh. Breathe.”

“I love you, Eiji,” Ash gasps out. It’s important. He has to say it, Eiji has to hear it—the words stuck in his mouth earlier, but earlier he didn’t know, he didn’t realize that love tastes like freedom and not like too-sweet candies and sleazy hands. Love was never the bars of a cage. It was always the sky, and Eiji is the key, the key to everything, everything, everything. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“Ash!” Eiji sounds shocked. “Oh, my darling, lovely Ash. My sweetest Ash. Oh, Ash. I know you do. I love you too. Hush, hush. I am here with you. Don’t cry.”

Ash takes a shaky breath. Footsteps approach, and he pulls away, trying to scrub the tears from his face. “I…”

Nahoko appears in the doorway, mug in hand, and stops abruptly at the sight of the two of them, wrapped up in an embrace.

“Oh boy,” she sighs. “Okay. Pause for one minute.”

She studiously avoids looking at either of them as she throws her teabag away, adds a fresh one to her cup, and pours hot water over it, then scampers back to the door.

“You can keep being sappy now,” she announces. “I was never here.”

“Sappy?” Eiji huffs, staring after her.

Ash laughs wetly. “Yeah. You’re such a sap, Eiji. Babbling about how you love me like that, huh?”

Eiji looks at him, immeasurably fond, and elbows him in the ribs. “Speak for yourself.”

Eiji ends up taking the other two mugs into the living room while Ash goes to wash his face _again—_ the amount of times he’s cried in this apartment and come to stare at his blotchy cheeks in the mirror is getting ridiculous—and rejoins him, settling into the armrest on the sofa and letting Eiji lean into his side.

“So, Nahoko, what are your plans for tomorrow?” Eiji asks, seamlessly switching from Japanese to English as soon as Ash joins them. It makes him feel warm again, how Eiji wants him to feel included. He wants to learn Japanese soon, so Eiji doesn’t have to worry about him. “You are going out in the morning, right?”

“Yes!” Nahoko looks up from her phone. “Sayo really wanted to go ice skating, so we are going to that one big rink in the morning, and we will be at the market in Shiba Park at night!”

“Skating,” Eiji muses, and looks at Ash. “That could be fun.”

Ash thinks back to the one disastrous time Eiji persuaded him to take him skating in New York and opens his mouth to say _maybe not_ , but—

“No!” Nahoko sits up and smacks Eiji’s shoulder. “No, you are _not_ allowed to come with me and be all sappy with your boyfriend while I am just trying to have fun with my friends! Besides, Misaki—”

She clams up, puffs out her cheeks just like Eiji does, and glares. Ash hides a smile behind his tea.

“Fine!” Eiji rolls his eyes. “We will not go to the same place you go. Stop throwing a tantrum! What does Misaki have to do with anything, though?”

“Nothing!” Nahoko kicks at Eiji’s leg. “Shut up, Nii-san!”

“Whatever, weirdo.” Eiji flicks her cheek, and she squawks. “I should make dinner soon. What do you want?”

“Why don’t we order in tonight?” Ash suggests, draping his arm about Eiji’s shoulders. It’s a selfish suggestion. Mostly, he just doesn’t want to let go of Eiji, not when Eiji’s laying against his side so peacefully. “On me.”

Eiji pauses, narrowing his eyes, and then looks up at him. “Do you still have all that…”

“Golzine’s money?” Ash smirks. “Yeah. And then some. Anything out there you want? I can get it for you.”

“A Nintendo Switch,” Nahoko declares.

“I just want you,” Eiji says, then whips around, indignant, to glare at his sister. “Nahoko!”

Ash cracks up.

“No, no,” he grins, rubbing Eiji’s shoulder. “I’ll buy you a Switch. What color d’you want?”

“Do not just _indulge her!”_ Eiji protests, flabbergasted.

“Pink and green,” Nahoko says. “It’s Christmas, Eiji. Consider this your present to me.”

“Since when do you expect Christmas presents?” Eiji demands. “That is a Western thing!”

“Since you told me about Christmas presents last year,” Nahoko says primly. Ash smothers another laugh in his tea, squeezing Eiji’s shoulder gently again. They sure are related.

“You are being ridiculous just because you want Ash to like you,” Eiji mutters. “Too bad you opened by punching him. You could have just said, ‘hello, Ash, I am Eiji’s little sister, it is nice to meet you’, but no. You _had_ to be… to be…”

“In fairness,” Ash points out, as Eiji grumbles, “it wasn't a very hard hit.”

“That does not make it better!” Eiji elbows him. "Stupid!"

"Did you just hit me for being stupid?" Ash asks, smiling wryly. "Bit hypocritical of you there, huh?"

"No! I..." Eiji puffs out his cheeks, the same way he always has, and huffs. It's more charming than it has any right to be, and Ash can't help but smile, even as Eiji complains. "You are so annoying. I cannot believe I was crying over you."

“That’s why I hit him,” Nahoko says. “For making you cry.”

Eiji stares back and forth from her to Ash, heaves a great big sigh, and mutters into his tea, “Great. Fantastic. You two both want to be stupid and overprotective of me. You will get along great.”

Ash laughs, his stomach flip-flopping at the idea that he might really get along well with Eiji’s sister, that Eiji is tacitly giving his approval for them to be friends. Can he really fit in here, with Eiji’s family? “You think so?”

“If you buy me a Switch, we will definitely get along well,” Nahoko tells him. Eiji wordlessly smacks her arm.

They eventually order dinner; Eiji takes their mugs to the sink, and Nahoko decides they’ll put on a movie while they wait for it to arrive. Her choice ends up being a TV series instead, some J-drama that Eiji rolls his eyes at while Nahoko fiddles with the settings to find the English subtitles. It’s kind of her, but ultimately unnecessary; Ash is far more interested in watching the light flicker across Eiji’s face.

Eiji, too, seems less interested in the show and more interested in Ash; his eyes mostly stay on the screen, but as minutes tick by, he slowly leans further and further into him, until he’s laying against Ash’s chest while Ash sits with his back against the armrest. Eiji wraps his arms around his waist and hums softly.

“Your hair has gotten longer,” he observes, looking up, and Ash blinks, raising a hand to run through his hair contemplatively.

It _has_ gotten longer since New York; he hasn’t really bothered to cut it too often, and right now it’s in sore need of a trim, dangling a little past his chin. He’s been keeping it in a ponytail these days. “Yeah, I’ve been meaning to cut it, but I keep forgetting.”

“I like it.” Eiji reaches up, too, catching a strand that fell out of the ponytail as he slept and twirling it around his fingers. “Suits you.”

“Stop flirting,” Nahoko groans. “I am trying to watch a movie, here…”

Eiji looks up at him, nonplussed. Ash catches his gaze and quirks a tiny smile at him, shrugging one shoulder.

And then Eiji grins deviously.

“Oh, _Ash,”_ he cries, flinging himself against Ash’s chest and casting a dramatic hand to his forehead. “I am _so_ in love with you, oh, my darling! You are the most beautiful man in the _world!_ My knees just go weak when I see you! You make me—”

“Shut up shut up shut up!” Nahoko shrieks, grabbing the hoodie Eiji left on the back of the couch earlier and balling it up to wield like a floppy club. Eiji laughs and shields himself with an arm as she clambers over him to try and hit him in the face, his elbow digging into Ash’s ribs in the process. “You are so annoying, Nii-san, shut _up!”_

“Oh, Ash, my love,” Eiji wails, clutching at him. “Save me, save me, my hero!”

“I will throw you out on the street!” Nahoko hits him with the hoodie again, and again. “You monster!”

Ash wraps his arms around Eiji’s shoulders and head, shielding him from the hoodie blows by smushing his face into his shoulder. There’s a spark in his chest, and it bubbles up into a grin as he puts on a French accent (it seems right) and declares, “I will protect you, my little dove, so fear not!”

“No!” Nahoko cries. “Do not support him, I thought you wanted me to like you, Ash! Do not hide him! He is the worst!”

“He’s not,” Ash defends, dropping the accent. “He’s pretty cute, actually.”

“Mmph!” Eiji wriggles in his arms, voice muffled by his sweater. Ash isn’t sure what he was trying to say, but he assumes it was assent.

“See?” he asks. “Eiji agrees.”

Eiji wiggles, bats at his hand, and lifts his face, cheeks red and eyes dancing. He doesn’t pull away, still laying on Ash’s chest, and Ash almost kisses his head. “I am very cute, Nahoko. See? Ash said so.”

“I will leave,” Nahoko threatens. “I will go to the hotel and tell Miyuki and Ichiko to let me in their bed because you are bullying me.”

“Do it,” Eiji says. “Go ahead. I will be waiting, for when you get lost and call me crying.”

Nahoko puffs out her cheeks again. “You are an asshole!”

“Language,” Eiji says, very primly. Nahoko sticks out her tongue and picks up the remote to rewind her drama.

Eiji dozes off after dinner, his head pillowed on Ash’s chest; Ash shifts his legs carefully so as not to wake him and holds him close. Nahoko looks over and scoffs.

“He is terrible at staying up late.”

“He is,” Ash agrees. “You’re more of a night owl?”

“Sometimes.” Nahoko looks back at the screen. “Was he like this in America, too, or did he secretly live a night life?”

“Just like this.” Ash looks down, affection stirring in his chest, and strokes a hand through Eiji’s hair. Eiji snuffles softly, but doesn’t wake. “He would get up early in the morning and drag me outta bed ‘cuz he said it was shameful to sleep in so much.”

“He does that to me, too!” Nahoko flicks a quick glance at him, a fleeting grin, and then goes back to watching.

She’s nervous, Ash realizes, and wonders how he didn’t see it sooner. Eiji even said as much. She wants him to like her, and she’s shy about trying to gain his approval. Maybe that’s why she’s been so playful with Eiji—it feels like safe ground for her to interact with him over.

Ash makes a decision.

“He’s sweet, though.” He smiles down at Eiji in his arms. “He’ll never tell you, but he’s the only reason I’m still alive.”

Nahoko goes still. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said.” Ash looks down at Eiji and thinks of cages and birds, and freedom and flight. “But when I met him, my life… sucked. He’s the one who showed me it was still a life worth living. A lot of stuff happened, but… he’s the world, to me.”

Nahoko looks away from the screen, down at her feet, and then carefully, hesitantly, meets his eyes. “Really? What… did he even do?”

Ash gives into the urge in his heart and presses a soft kiss to the top of Eiji’s head. “He stayed with me,” he answers quietly. “Even when it put him in danger. When everyone else left me. When he could have easily come back home.”

“He told me you always tried to get him to come back to Japan,” Nahoko admits. Her eyes are big and dark, just like Eiji’s. “But he never told me or Kaa-san anything about America. What was… what danger?”

Ash sighs. “There… was a very bad man hunting me down,” he finally says, picking his words carefully. “I… might tell you more one day, but that’s all I can say about him right now. He was… he didn’t like that Eiji made me want to leave him. So he wanted to kill Eiji.”

There were many bad men, and many of them wanted Eiji dead, for various reasons. But Ash can’t tell this innocent girl with eyes like Eiji’s on the day they met that a mafia boss wanted to torture her brother and use him to kill Ash. Nor can he tell her that Yut-Lung only wanted Eiji dead out of jealousy.

“Leave him? You worked for the bad man?” Nahoko tips her head to the side. “Why?”

Ash sighs again. “I didn’t have a choice,” he says after a moment. “But I wanted to leave, and he didn’t want me to.”

“And if he couldn’t have you, no one could?”

Ash looks at her, surprised. She shrugs.

“I heard that line in an American movie one time. It fits, right?”

“Yeah.” Ash looks down at Eiji again. “It does.”

“How are we doing sleeping arrangements tonight?” Nahoko asks, changing the topic completely, and Ash raises an eyebrow—he thought she’d be more curious, but it seems like her nerves have gotten the best of her. “Eiji has one bed and the couch. Who is where?”

“Do you want the bed?” Ash asks. “I can take the floor. I don’t mind.”

Nahoko wrinkles her nose. “I will take the couch,” she decides. “Get Eiji in bed. Your responsibility.”

Ash blinks. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Nahoko gives Eiji a dirty look. “He will never let me hear the end of it if I make you take the floor on your first day here.”

“But you said you want the couch,” Ash says, frowning. “That means I do get the floor.”

Nahoko turns the dirty look on him, now. She looks just like Eiji when she does that. “As if! You think Eiji will let you _not_ sleep in his bed?”

Ash laughs. “I’m not putting him on the floor, Nahoko.”

“Oh my god.” Nahoko groans. “Eiji told me you were smart.”

Ash hesitates. He could acknowledge the dig, but… He glances down at Eiji, sleeping on his chest, and gently strokes his hair back from his face. “Eiji… told you about me?”

“Not a lot.” Nahoko sighs. “He did not open up about America much at all. But I made him tell me a little.”

So Eiji suffered in silence. Wearing this sweater, sitting in this empty apartment, eating his dinner alone. It’s a confirmation of what he imagined earlier, and it stabs at his heart to hear.

Maybe…

Maybe it really was…

Maybe it was cruel of Blanca to tell him to never see Eiji again. Maybe that was cruel. To both him and to Eiji. He closes his eyes and tries to think back to two years ago, to how raw the fear was, and the grief, and the pain—it’s all distant and numb now, after two soulless years in Corsica, but he remembers how horrific it was to think Eiji could have died all because of his selfishness.

But… was it just as selfish to run away? To leave Eiji to suffer all alone?

He doesn’t know what to think anymore. His mind is too loud and too silent and too empty and too full, and if he tries to find the answer right now he thinks he might explode from all the nothingness stuffed into him.

“Ash?” Nahoko sounds uncertain, her voice a little high, and he opens his eyes again. “Um… are you… are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Ash clears his throat and looks down at Eiji. “I just, ah… he… he deserves so much better than all this.”

“I used to wish you would come back to him.” Nahoko glances away, as if she doesn’t know how to admit something like this out loud. “It has been a long time since I saw him this happy.”

Ash winces. “Since he came back from America?”

But Nahoko shakes her head. “No, even before. After his injury, he got very sad. He used to—he thinks I do not know, but I figured it out—he used to smile a lot for me, to tell me everything was okay, but things have been hard for him for so long. He took care of me a lot, when I was little, and everything was happening with, um… our parents. And there was a lot of pressure on him. So it is just… nice to see him like this.”

She folds her hands in her lap and twiddles her thumbs, cheeks pink, and looks pointedly at the floor; Ash would laugh, if he wasn’t so overcome. As is, he just looks down at Eiji and the soft curve of his cheeks and the sweet lines of his eyelashes and the dark waves of his hair, and thinks desperately that he _loves_ this boy, loves him with every fiber of his soul.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and Eiji sighs in his sleep. “It’s nice.”

“Yeah.” Nahoko stares at the couple on the screen begin to make out in the rain. If he was less desensitized to this shit, Ash thinks he’d probably find this an awkward thing to watch with one’s brother’s … whatever he is to Eiji. Sure enough, she looks away and groans. “Okay! Let’s, um, go to bed! You and Eiji can take the bed and I will get the couch.”

Ash blinks. “Uh…”

He doesn’t want to assume Eiji is okay with him sleeping in his bed again—this afternoon could easily have been a fluke—but he’d be lying if he tried to say that he doesn’t really, really like the idea of curling up with him again, and he falters, looking down at Eiji’s peaceful sleeping face.

“Eiji,” he finally says, and gently shakes his shoulder. “Hey, wake up.”

“Mm?” Eiji’s eyelashes flutter as he opens his eyes. “Oh… I did not mean to fall asleep, sorry…”

“It’s fine.” Ash’s heart swells at the look on his face, soft and open and trusting. “Let’s get you to bed, yeah?”

“Mmhmmm.” Eiji sighs and yawns. “Sleepy.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Nahoko says, and smacks his leg. “Get up and go to your bed, Nii-san. I want to sleep.”

“But you take the bed…” Eiji mumbles, sitting up. He sounds adorably confused, and Ash can’t help but wrap his arm around him as he rubs his eyes. He was right, earlier—he’s fallen right back into orbit around Eiji, and he’ll never let go. “Huh?”

“We already talked about sleeping arrangements,” Nahoko explains, giving Ash a look as if to tell him he better not disagree. “You both get the bed, I get the couch. And I want the fluffy blue blanket.”

“Oh.” Eiji blinks, sighs, and looks back at Ash. “That is okay with you?”

“If it’s okay with you.” Ash ducks his head. “I can also take the floor, I don’t mind—”

“It is more than okay with me,” Eiji interrupts, and hugs him. “No floor. You are my—” and he pauses, his smile dimming, and then shakes his head and gets to his feet. “Okay. Let us… hmm,” and he stretches, arms above his head. “Let me get you the blue blanket, Nahoko. Ash, do you need to borrow clothes to sleep in?”

“No, I have some.” Ash gets up to get his backpack, and Eiji nods and trots off to wherever he keeps the blankets.

They make it into bed not too much later, and Ash scoots in to take the side closer to the wall again, so that if Eiji wants to go anywhere he won’t be in the way. Part of him argues he should be by the door, so that if anyone comes through, he can defend Eiji, but he stuffs that thought down and strangles it as best as he can. No one will come attack them. This is a safe place.

Eiji turns the lights off and slips into bed next to him. Silence falls. The bare few inches between them stretch into a yawning canyon.

And then Eiji’s hand finds his, fingers slipping between his and squeezing gently. Ash tentatively squeezes back.

“Are you sleepy?” Eiji murmurs, rolling onto his side to face Ash.

Ash shrugs noncommitally. He’s still exhausted, but he’s wired, too, from how much has happened, from how happy he feels. His heart is singing, but his mind is waiting for the other shoe to drop; he knows he should expect some nightmares tonight, at this rate. “I’ll fall asleep eventually. Don’t worry about me.”

“Hmm.” Eiji looks at their joined hands, then back to his face. “Do you want me to hold you again?”

Ash looks away. How pathetic it is of him to expect Eiji to comfort him all the time. Isn’t this enough?

“You can say no if you do not want it, Ash.” Eiji closes his eyes in the dimness for a moment, then opens them again with a small smile. “You can always say no.”

“What if…”

Ash swallows hard.

“What if I want to say yes, but… I shouldn’t?”

“You can always say yes, too,” Eiji murmurs, and then Eiji’s arms slide around his shoulders and gently guide him closer, until he can tuck his head under Eiji’s chin again and breathe. “I will not judge you for it, my sweet Ash.”

“You keep calling me that,” Ash mumbles into his chest. “Why?”

“Do you not like it?” Eiji rests his chin atop his head. “I can stop.”

He hesitates, briefly, and very, very slowly slips his arm about Eiji’s waist. “That’s not what I said.”

Eiji hums. “Mm. I say it because it is true. You are sweet, and you are Ash.”

And he is Eiji’s. But Eiji doesn’t say that, so Ash swallows it and closes his eyes to focus on the feeling of his heartbeat. He desperately wants to hear Eiji say it, just once— _you are sweet, you are Ash, and you are mine_ —but maybe this is for the best. Maybe his heart would seize up in joy and disbelief and would stop completely, if Eiji told him that.

“You really want me forever?” he whispers, pressing closer _._ “For… forever?”

“I do.” Eiji kisses his hair. “I would do anything for you, Ash. I want you to be happy. And if I make you happy, I want you to stay with me forever.”

Ash swallows hard. “Would that make _you_ happy?”

“Yes.” Eiji laughs a soft, breathless laugh. “So, so happy.”

“And you’re not gonna get tired of me asking you to tell me again?” Ash opens his eyes and just looks at the vague outline of Eiji’s body in the dimness. “I don’t know how many times I’m gonna have to ask you to do that.”

“I will not.” Eiji nuzzles his forehead. “Maybe you will have to tell me, some, too.”

“What?” Ash looks up. He can’t see his face clearly in the darkness, but there’s still a hushed, stolen intimacy locked in the space between them, hanging in the air. “You—you think I don’t want you?”

Eiji sighs. Ash could close the distance, could nuzzle his nose and press adoring kisses to his sweet mouth. He doesn’t, but he wants to, and it scares him.

“You did let me think you were dead for two years, Ash.” Eiji’s voice is soft. “I am not angry, but… is it so hard to believe that I might feel like you do not need me now?”

“Eiji,” Ash breathes, and he shakes his head in distress. The mind-numbing exhaustion is starting to set in again, and he wraps his arm tighter around Eiji’s waist, horrified. “No. That isn’t it. That was never it.”

“Yes, but…” Eiji trails off. Ash waits. “You see how it is easy for me to feel like it is, don’t you?”

“I do.” Helpless, Ash holds him tighter.

The idea that Eiji might turn to him for comfort, after all this time, after how much he’s looked to Eiji for solace… is it selfish if he feels relieved? Glad, even, that he can hope to give something back after how much Eiji has given to him? He never even considered that he could be a support for Eiji.

It gives him the strength to pull him closer, to brush his lips to Eiji’s jaw in a kiss that’s almost clumsy, as his hand on Eiji’s back presses him to his chest, and then the dam has burst and he’s peppering tiny kisses all over his face, his heart swelling with affection so rapidly that if he doesn’t get all of it out he’ll explode.

Eiji makes a tiny noise of surprise at first, but melts into his touch, tightening his arms around Ash’s shoulders and nuzzling his cheek. “Ash…”

“I want you,” Ash promises him, breathless and tired and drowning and at peace. His chest is tight with emotions he can’t hope to name, but Eiji is warm in his arms. “I want you forever, I want to be with you forever, I never want—I wish I could—I never want to let you go. If—if I could have, I would’ve—I would’ve been with you from the start, Eiji, I… I… I thought I just put you in danger, that I was being selfish by wanting to be with you—”

“Ash,” Eiji murmurs, his voice impossibly tender.

“—but I wanted to, I’ve always wanted to stay, to be with you, to let you be with me, and I thought that was wrong of me, but it hurt you for me to do that and—and I don’t know what to think, Eiji, because I thought for so long I couldn’t come near you to keep you safe, but—”

“Ash.” Eiji’s fingers cup his cheek. “Ash.”

“—I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore,” Ash finishes, squeezing his eyes shut.

He’s breathing hard, his eyes threatening to water again, and it’s ridiculous, really, how much he’s been crying in one day, but something in him is crying out like an abandoned child, and for the first time in years he hasn’t been forced to silence it.

“I just—I just know I want to be here, and I want—I want you, Eiji, and—and that’s it. That’s all I know. I just want you. I’m so tired of trying to figure out the rest. I… I don’t know…”

“Ash,” Eiji interrupts, and their noses brush as he leans in. “Ash, my darling Ash. You are not being selfish. You are not putting me in danger. You make me happy. I want you to stay with me, too. I promise.”

Ash doesn’t open his eyes, breathing in slowly before he bows his head and buries his face in Eiji’s neck. “I want to. I want to stay, Eiji. I… can I tell you something you aren’t going to like?”

“You can tell me anything,” Eiji answers, but his arms tighten, and Ash almost kisses his neck in response.

“I was ready to die.” He takes a shaky breath. “Back then, yeah, but… this morning, too.”

Eiji inhales sharply. “What do you mean?”

Ash takes a moment to find the right words, and Eiji buries his face in his hair, clinging to him, until he finally speaks again. “I… I mentioned that I didn’t mean—I wasn’t planning to talk to you. Right?”

“You did.” Eiji’s voice is slightly muffled. Ash’s heart squeezes in his chest—he loves him, he loves him, he loves him.

“I… figured what would be best,” he admits, “was if I just… if I did die. Because everyone already thought I was dead, and I put—I put all of you in danger—you, Max, Jessica, Ibe, Michael—and if you already thought I died, it’d be fine if I died for real after—after I sorted things out with the Foundation.

“But—but I was… I couldn’t without—I just had to see you again. I… I wanted to know that you were okay. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see you, and talk to you, but I thought… I really wanted to, but I thought if I did, I would be too selfish to let you go again. And—so I figured if I just stayed on the sidelines, I could reassure myself you were fine, and you didn’t need me anyway, and then I could… I don’t know. I didn’t—I didn’t have a concrete plan or anything. I just thought I’d… die, somehow, after that, and I’d be fine with it.” He blows out a breath. “I don’t know.”

Eiji is trembling in his arms. A beat of silence passes.

“Eiji?”

Eiji chokes on a gasp, and with a jolt, Ash realizes he’s crying. Silent tears, as he shakes from the effort of holding them in—he’s crying, soft and desperate and forlorn, and Ash’s breath catches in his throat.

“Eiji,” he breathes, and looks up at him, but Eiji doesn’t meet his gaze, just clutching at him and shaking his head. In the darkness, he sounds heartbroken. “Eiji, what is it, talk to me…”

 _“Ash,”_ Eiji sobs, and hugs him so tight it almost hurts. He wraps both of his legs around one of Ash’s, arms wrapped around his shoulders, and buries his face in his neck, like he’s afraid Ash will evaporate if he doesn’t hold him, and Ash is taken aback for half a second before he rubs his back, trying to soothe him.

“It’s okay,” Ash murmurs, and kisses his hair. It feels like all he’s done today is make Eiji cry, and an insidious part of him whispers that it would be better if he never came. But his soul cries out against that thought, screaming in pain at just the suggestion of giving this up now that he’s got it, and he knows he can’t ever leave again, not unless Eiji decides he wants him gone. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m sorry. I’m here now.”

“You—you w-were living like th-that for two _years,”_ Eiji sobs, and clings to him harder. “You—you were all—all alone—and you thought—you wanted—you were—Ash,” and he breaks off, crying piteously into Ash’s shoulder. “I n-never wanted you to be—to be alone like that. Never, Ash, never…”

“Eiji,” Ash whispers, thunderstruck. Eiji’’s crying this hard because… because he’s sad for him? Because he can’t stand the thought of how lonely every single night in that gilded room in Corsica was? Because he thought of Ash ready to lay down and give in to death, knowing he’d never make it back down the mountain, and it broke his heart? Eiji is crying for him?

“Promise me.” Eiji clears his throat and shakes his head, nose bumping Ash’s neck. “P-promise me, Ash, you—you won’t—I could not bear losing you again. Please. Promise me you won’t leave me like that.”

“Eiji,” Ash whispers again, and then, stronger, “Eiji. Eiji. No. No, I won’t. I—I don’t want to die, I just—I thought that was all that was left for me—I’m—I promise. I won’t. I… I won’t leave you.”

Eiji lets out a deep, shuddering breath, and nods against his neck. “I love you.”

“I… I love you, too.” Ash kisses his hair again, more easily this time. It seems that it gets easier to kiss Eiji every time he tries. The thought tugs at the long-buried strings ot _hope_ in his heart. “I love you, god, I love you so much.”

Eiji sniffles and nods again, his voice still wavery. “I know. I know. I… I never, ever want to lose you. Please stay with me, Ash.”

“I never want to lose you, either. I… Eiji. I won’t ask for forever,” Ash murmurs, repeating words that fall with the weight of stones. “But—”

“No, fuck that.” Eiji sniffles again, and Ash stops in surprise, a tiny smile tugging at his lips. “I _will_ ask for forever, Ash. I want my forever to be with you. I told you this before, and I will say it again. I want to be with you forever.”

“Forever,” Ash repeats softly, tasting the word. He kisses Eiji’s hair a third time, and rubs his back. “Forever.”

Eiji nods. Then he shifts, tucking his head under Ash’s chin, and heaves a deep sigh. “Sorry. I keep crying today.”

“Me too,” Ash offers, closing his eyes again. “It’s fine. I think this qualifies as a pretty emotional day for the both of us, right?”

Eiji huffs out a tiny laugh and nods. “Yeah… we should sleep. We can go out tomorrow, if you want. Or we can stay in. But first thing in the morning, we will have breakfast, and then we will call Max.”

Ash’s chest tightens again. “You… think he’s gonna be pissed? If he wants to hit me, or something, I don't know, maybe we should head over to the States again—”

“He will not want to hit you,” Eiji sighs, his voice soft and tender again, though it still shakes a little. “He will be so, so happy to hear you are alive, Ash. He will not be angry. He will be glad.”

“Huh.” Ash tucks his face into Eiji’s jasmine-scented hair and considers. He’s… he’s really missed Max, but in the same way as he’s missed Eiji—the way where he took every single feeling of longing he had and strangled it until he couldn’t feel it any longer, because he thought loneliness was a weakness, and that he was too broken to ever come back.

“Trust me.” Eiji clears his throat again, but he still sounds sniffly when he speaks. “I am the one who has been in contact with him, remember? He will be so happy, Ash.”

“You really think I can—that I really can just live a normal life?” Ash whispers, into the hush of the night. “That I can just… move on?”

“Yes.” Eiji doesn’t hesitate. “You are not a monster, Ash. You are not a leopard, either. And you are not broken. You can heal. I know it, and Max knows it, and Ibe-san knows it, and soon, I know that you will know it, too.”

“I’m tired,” Ash admits, and Eiji lifts his head and looks up at him. In the dimness, his eyes are unreadable, but the way he cups his cheek in one hand is unmistakably gentle. “Tired of being alone, tired of running, tired of wishing for something else, tired of thinking about everything—I’m just so, so tired, Eiji.”

Eiji kisses his cheek, and Ash lets out a slow breath as the tightness in his chest starts to loosen, and his limbs grow ever more leaden. He feels safe in Eiji’s arms.

Eiji kisses his cheek again, stroking his thumb against his cheekbone. “Rest. Close your eyes, and sleep. Tomorrow is a new day, and we will face it together.”

“Yeah.” He closes his eyes.

Having time is a foreign concept. He doesn’t know how to operate like this, when he has no ticking time bomb set to detonate any second hanging over his head, when he’s safe and Eiji’s safe and no one is threatening them. He doesn’t have to have all the answers now, because they have tomorrow, and tomorrow’s tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that, too.

It feels…

Safe.

He feels safe.

“Earlier,” he murmurs, as Eiji caresses his cheek again, “when we were talking about sleeping arrangements, you almost said something. You said ‘You are my,’ and you stopped. What were you going to call me?”

Eiji laughs softly. “Of all the things to ask about, it’s this? You are ridiculous.” He kisses his cheek again, though, and it removes any sting from the words. “I almost said you are my guest, so you cannot sleep on the floor. But… you are not my guest. Right?”

Ash thinks of his toothbrush in the cup in the bathroom, sitting right next to Eiji’s, and about Eiji wearing his coat out to the station, and about his old sweater, folded neatly in Eiji’s closet.

“No,” he agrees. “Not a guest.”

Eiji smiles against his jaw. “I am glad you agree. Now sleep. Okay?”

“Okay.” Ash sighs, sinking into the pillow, and hesitates only for a second before he adds, “I… I’m… really happy I’m with you.”

“Ash,” Eiji says, and Ash can still feel him smiling as he kisses his nose. “I am very happy you are here with me, too. Now rest.”

“Good night,” Ash murmurs, curling into him. It’s funny how easy it is for him to feel safe and sleepy all snuggled up in Eiji’s arms, when no one before could even touch him if he hoped to get any rest. But Eiji has always been his exception.

“Good night.” Eiji strokes his hair back from his face. “Sleep well, my sweet Ash.”

There it is again. He kind of wants to ask Eiji to call him _his,_ to say it again, to tell him he’s never, ever going to let go.

He almost does, but he doesn’t; instead he rubs his fingers in a slow circle on Eiji’s back, and decides _not yet_. After all, time is on their side now, as strange as it feels. So he can wait to ask Eiji to tell him again, tomorrow.

Because now, they finally have a tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this entire thing in one sitting today after watching ep 24 and i listened to the piano track from the ending the entire time. ive transcended at least 3 levels of human emotion by now i think
> 
> maive is an oc who belongs to my roommate [jo](https://twitter.com/jumpforjo) !! we joked about him falling in love with eiji and then oops. ty for letting me use him jo!!
> 
> chapter 2 will be about nahoko (eiji's sister) meeting ash. i am not sure when it will happen because this one sure wasn't planned to be like This (or. planned at all. but yknow) but it's supposed to exist by christmas!
> 
> [tumblr](https://eijispumpkin.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/songbirdrimi)


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